


As If It Were Destiny

by SharkbaitSekki



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Based on Twitter fanart, Captivity, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Lots of room for interpretation of relationship, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rescue Missions, Rhea's still a nutcase nothing is new, Sequel, Spoilers about Rhea's true identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 15:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21210791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkbaitSekki/pseuds/SharkbaitSekki
Summary: Sequel toand so, he believed.Five years have gone by, and Byleth remains missing. When Dimitri and Claude catch wind of his return, they set out on one last pilgrimage, driven by their faith to rescue him one last time, no matter the cost.Because just as destiny is inexorable, so is love.[Based onthis Twitter fanart]





	As If It Were Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back, everyone! This fic is a direct sequel to [and so, he believed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20593652) so please read that first or you won't understand 70% of what's going on. I wasn't gonna write a sequel, content with the open end on the last one, but then [Cosu](https://twitter.com/guessibetter) went and drew [this follow-up to the first doodle](https://twitter.com/guessibetter/status/1185768591616028672) and I was like... well... I guess I'm legally obliged to write a sequel now :')
> 
> Anyway, this would've been done at least 68% faster if Super Junior didn't exist, I've been taking any excuse to skip writing and watch SuperTV episodes instead ahahaha. By the end of it, tonight, I was having a hard time writing. I did my dishes and scrubbed my bathroom to waste time (wow, rare), and baked banana bread at 2am so I wouldn't have to write. BUT I FINISHED IT. And it... it looks.... passable?
> 
> The title is a translation/adaptation of a lyric from the song "Heartbeat" by BTS. I was originally gonna name this work "운명처럼 (찾을거야)", closely translated to "like destiny, [I/You/We] will find [unspecified object]" and I really liked the vagueness of it/interchangeability of the subject, because this fic is really about different people finding different things as if it was destiny for them to be found. However, I figured that picking a title in a language I don't really speak was tacky, and changed it so something much less satisfying ): 
> 
> Onward to the fic. The only spoiler warning is regarding Rhea's true identity, with a lot of elements from Silver Snow route mentioned; if you've read the prequel to this fic, there should be no other applicable spoiler warnings. Also, please read this fic like the sequel it's meant to be: if the characters do or say something a little off, consider that maybe it's due to things that happened in the first fic (or maybe I'm just a fckin clown). 
> 
> Enjoy!!!

The battle for Garreg Mach was hard fought. Most soldiers and students who survived it would eventually come to remember it as a grim day for all, and the tales of the monastery’s downfall would only come to be circulated around dying campfires and in quiet taverns before the break of dawn. The devastation itself was hard to put into words; frequently, Edelgard’s second wave of forces would be described as the final nail in the coffin, a tsunami wave of fresh fighters swallowing the exhausted defenders of the monastery and violently drowning all morale left standing. In the end, the combined assault from both human soldiers and Demonic Beasts in Edelgard’s reserve arsenal had been too much; although the defense against the vanguard lasted nearly half a day, with the second wave of troops, the battle had been concluded within hours.

Amidst it all, survivors would come to describe a gigantic white-scaled dragon swooping in from the sky to wreak havoc upon the Emperor’s troops, an unexplained occurrence that would forever remain a mystery, for when the walls of Garreg Mach collapsed, the dragon flew into the canyon below, never to be seen again. Rumours briefly emerged that the dragon had been the Goddess’ envoy, swooping in to save the Monastery and the believers within, but no comment was made by the Interim Archbishop Seteth to confirm or deny the rumour.

The dragon simply became another mystery whispered amongst the wives of surviving soldiers, and in the carefully-penned letters between diplomats, alongside the unresolved topic of Archbishop Rhea’s disappearance.

Since her initial, sudden disappearance two moons beforehand, she had not resurfaced even once. Professor Byleth, who had disappeared alongside her, had been found just a week later, and after his initial recovery from his terrible injuries, he had not commented much about the incident. He’d simply said that he didn’t know of Lady Rhea’s whereabouts. The students who’d found him also had kept their lips sealed about the incident, shedding no light on the unexplained event.

Of course, all of that fell into second place when the Adrestian Empire declared war on the Church, and the following scramble to prepare for war was likely the only reason why Claude and Dimitri managed to keep the incident of the Holy Tomb under wraps.

Claude was ready to bet his life, however, that Rhea had not disappeared for good after walking past them, leaving their beloved Professor on the Throne for them to save. If her chilling words had not been enough of a promise to return for Byleth, the crazed, near-feverish look she had given him before she left a bloody kiss on his forehead exposed her intentions clearly as day.

Besides, Claude had managed to take a good look at the white dragon that had fought beside them on the plains of Garreg Mach. The gears had begun to turn slowly in his mind as he tried to recall where he’d seen such a creature before, and theories began to take shape as he watched the dragon plunge unhesitatingly into the canyon, following Byleth when he, too, was pushed off below.

Byleth’s final scream echoed in Claude’s ears as the visceral memory of his presumed death rose to the forefront of his mind, following his pensive train of thought. A shiver wracked his body, and he pulled his cape -white, emblazoned with the Crest of Seiros, probably a deceased soldier’s- closer around him. The fire that he’s started an hour ago had already begun to dwindle, and Claude hesitated to get up to get more wood, unwilling to move Hilda, who’d finally managed to fall asleep with her head on his thigh despite the excruciating pain of her wounded leg.

Still, she wasn’t his only concern. And even though she was badly hurt, at least Claude could keep an eye on her like this.

Dimitri, however… he hadn’t spoken a word to Claude since their frantic escape from the fallen monastery earlier that evening. Claude figured it had something to do with the fact that Claude had physically restrained him from going after Byleth after the latter fell into the canyon. He understood Dimitri’s pain, truly, but he couldn’t allow him to make rash decisions fueled by emotion. Both of them had become highly protective of Byleth ever since his rescue from Rhea’s hands, and whilst his fall into the canyon had robbed Claude of breath and sight for several moments as well, he had managed to regain his head long enough to hold Dimitri back, if only because he couldn’t bear to lose his two most precious companions at once.

Turning his head, Claude craned his neck to try and look behind him without jostling Hilda too much. Dimitri was still just as he’d settled when they’d decided to set up camp in the forest at the foot of the mountain, leaned against a tree trunk with his cape wrapped around his body, his bloody lance leaning against his shoulder, and his head dipped against the knees he’d drawn tightly to his chest. Only the tension in his muscles, visible even in the dying firelight, proved that he was not asleep, and was still very much running high with emotion.

Sighing, Claude figured that they’d both only exhaust themselves as things were, and decided to try and fix it, at least somewhat. Gently, he manipulated Hilda’s head off of his thigh and onto the ground, covering her with the cape he’d grabbed off the battlefield. It was a testament to how drained she was that she barely even stirred.

He then got up, and, trying not to let his own insecurities show, marched up to Dimitri.

Dimitri lifted his head when he stopped in front of him, eyes narrowed and lips pursed as he watched Claude sit down next to him. Claude was unsure if his presence would be appreciated at the present moment, but he had to try.

He couldn’t bear to lose his two most precious companions at once.

Dimitri kept his silence, probably expecting Claude to say something first, but Claude actually had no idea what he could possibly say. He refused to apologize; not for selfishly keeping Dimitri with him when they so suddenly lost Byleth. So, he, too, stayed silent, directing his gaze to the campfire, watching the rise and fall of his best friend’s shoulders.

“Why did you hold me back…?” Dimitri finally asked, his voice raspy from having screamed himself raw earlier. Claude remembered that, too; how loudly and desperately Dimitri had wailed, fighting him to go to where Byleth had fallen. He’d screamed and pleaded and fought, and all Claude had done in return was squeeze him tightly against him, praying that Dimitri would not leave him behind, too.

“I couldn’t lose you, too,” Claude simply murmured, for it was the truth, plain and simple.

“We should have gone to him,” Dimitri protested weakly, already having yelled all of his arguments to Claude earlier. “We promised…”

“It was too late,” Claude shook his head, glancing towards Dimitri, and watching his expression crumble. There was dried blood on his cheek where a thin cut had clotted, and Claude reached out to brush the flakes off of Dimitri’s cold skin. “You and I both knew, when we heard him screaming, that it was too late.”

“We should have been there with him, then. By his side, always, where we belonged from the start,” Dimitri ducked his face back into his knees, not fleeing Claude’s touch but simply too overwhelmed to keep himself together.

“Yes, we should have,” Claude conceded, taking his hand back, and simply watching how Dimitri’s curled-up body trembled, both with the chill in the air and the anguish in his veins.

Deep sadness filled his heart at the sight of his companion falling apart so easily. It had taken him one loss, one loss on top of every other traumatizing betrayal he’d lived in the past two moons, and it just seemed like the fight had left his body. It wasn’t a good look on someone as strong-willed and determined as Dimitri. 

“Dimitri,” he murmured, shifting closer, until his thigh touched Dimitri’s. It was cold, and the violent shiver that ran down Claude’s spine also racked through the Prince’s leg. “We’ll get him back. I promise you that we will.”

“He’s gone, Claude,” Dimitri snapped, although the tension bled out of his shoulders when he lifted his head to make eye contact with Claude. “There is nothing to get back anymore. His broken body will rot at the bottom of the canyon, and his spirit will follow us everywhere we go, until the day we die.”

“Something tells me he’s not dead just yet,” Claude shook his head, pursing his lips in thought. “Teach is the embodiment of the Goddess- literally. It seems a little too easy for him to die like this.”

“What am I to believe, then…?” Dimitri’s voice rose a little and cracked, his dark eyes begging Claude for answers he didn’t have. “I want to believe he will return, and I want to believe that he’s alright… But I don’t know if I can.”

“Don’t think too hard about it,” Claude simply decided to say. “All this time, we’ve believed in Teach as easily as we breathe. If we continue to believe, I know he’ll return to us.”

Dimitri seemed to consider Claude’s words for a while, his gaze scouring Claude’s expression for any uncertainty. Claude kept his expression controlled, if only to make Dimitri feel more at ease, and finally allowed himself a small, sad smile.

At the sight of it, Dimitri wordlessly opened up his right arm, and Claude slid right in against him, letting Dimitri huddle them both tightly under his cape. It was much too short to shield them from the nightly chill, but somehow, Claude already felt warmer with his head pressed against Dimitri’s shoulder.

“The Goddess will always answer the prayers of those who need it the most,” he murmured against Dimitri’s ear, and Dimitri simply held him close as if the two of them were the last on all Fódlan.

They fell asleep holding hands, palms together, fingers interwoven tightly. Praying.

…-…-…-…

The next morning, Claude and Dimitri were able to set out, Claude carrying Hilda when it proved too much for her to hobble along on her shattered left knee. They cleared the forest and at the foot of the mountainous descent, the first village they encountered was an Alliance village. From there, they told the news of the downfall of Garreg Mach, and decided to keep going, although they could not agree on where to go next.

Understandably, Dimitri wanted to return to Kingdom territory, worried about the political state in the capital, and wanting to prepare for war against Edelgard. As the sole heir to the Throne of Faerghus, it was his birthright and duty to do so. Claude, although he was the heir to the Leicester Alliance, still had his grandfather to fall back on, and therefore didn’t urgently need to return to Derdriu, although one look at Hilda’s feverish, pained face spoke volumes about how she’d be doomed if Claude chose to leave her behind now.

In the end, as much as it hurt Claude to make the decision (and as much as Hilda insisted that she’d be alright on her own), he firmly decided to escort Hilda to safety, whilst Dimitri set out to the west by himself, towards Fhirdiad through Charon territory. Claude promised that as soon as he made sure that the situation in Derdriu was under control, he would ride to Fhirdiad to stay with Dimitri in order to figure out their next step, and with that heavy promise as a parting gift to both of them, they left in opposite directions.

(Hilda never quite forgave herself for being the reason why Claude had not gone with Dimitri to Fhirdiad that fated day).

With all of the stops they made in Gloucester territory to get patchwork medical treatment for Hilda’s rapidly-septic leg, it took a few weeks for Claude to make it to Derdriu.

When he arrived, on the morning of a chilly winter day of the year 1181, his grandfather greeted him at the gates of the Riegan mansion with a grave expression on his face, and solemnly announced that the Kingdom had fallen, Fhirdiad having gone up in flames in consequence of an internal coup staged by Adrestian loyalist Cornelia.

Exhausted from the journey and drained by shock, Claude fell to his knees before his grandfather and asked about the fate of its Prince- Dimitri, Dimitri, his Dimitri, not Dimitri as well-

And when his grandfather looked down at him with thinly-veiled grief in his eyes, he did not even need to say any words before Claude finally burst into tears, crushed by the weight of it all, shaking and tearing apart at the seams, for it was only then that he felt like he had truly lost everything.

…-…-…-…

It was dark when Byleth woke, his consciousness sluggishly filtering back into his mind like dewdrops at the edge of dawn, rolling off blades of grass to soak into soil. At first, it wasn’t quite awakening as much as it was awareness of himself, aware of his four limbs and of the air in his lungs, aware of his unbeating heart and slow pulse. Then, he became aware of the pain- so much pain, everywhere, in all of his limbs and bones, in all of his muscles and organs, in his skull and in his chest, from his head to his toes, and yet, despite being aware of how excruciating the agony was, he didn’t quite feel it as such. In fact, he felt a bit dissociated from his body, not quite floating, but not quite attached to his physical form either.

It was a strange feeling, like a raft moored to shore but undulating at the mercy of the waves regardless. Byleth did not feel panic, but also didn’t think he could feel anything in this state if he even tried.

Then, slowly, his senses came to. He first became aware of his position, noting that his limbs were swaying but that his body was not moving. He felt warm pressure around his shoulders and under his knees, a touch that grounded him and beckoned him back from the void in which he’d fallen. He wanted so desperately to follow that touch, but everything felt like it was out of his control.

Next, his hearing slowly came to, and this time, with a little more clarity, Byleth was able to tell that he was being moved- carried off. The person holding him was being gentle with his broken body, careful not to jostle him too much as they walked, feet crunching softly in dew-specked grass. Byleth could hear their slow breathing and felt the beating of their heart against him.

But that was all he felt. Drained of all his strength, and in too much pain to cope, his budding awareness was snuffed out like a candle, and he passed out once more.

…-…-…-…

The next time he drifted into awareness, he felt distinctively colder. His body had stopped moving; in fact, he could tell from the pain in his knees and waist, that he was upright. That very same pain was just as it was before, still muted, but still unresolved, and the only warmth he found was in the hand delicately carding through the strands of his hair, slowly, reverently.

His hearing came to slowly, and with it, so did a low humming.

Singing, in fact. Byleth did not hear the lyrics, but he recognized the melody, as intimately as he recognized his own reflection in a mirror. A wave of calm washed across his entire being, body and soul, soothing the pain for a moment and making him feel safe. The fingers in his hair flowed with the rhythm of the beautiful song, and Byleth grasped for it with every ounce of his strength being sapped away by whatever exhaustion had wrapped its tendrils around him.

The song ended, and the touch faded away. Byleth mourned the loss of both, his awareness beginning to fade back into the dark when he forgot to fight the creeping advance of unconsciousness. By the time he realized that he was losing the battle, he was on the verge of passing out again.

“Sleep,” a clear, loving voice murmured to him, just as warm as the hands that had soothed his pain so momentarily. However, at the sound of it, something strange welled up rapidly inside of Byleth. Despite feeling completely at ease in the darkness, something deep inside of him went off, like bells tolling loudly and suddenly beginning to disturb the calm of the void as they heralded the arrival of something insidious. Like ripples in the water, hitting the edges of Byleth’s awareness over and over again, something like his most primal instinct began to yell that he should be afraid.

He should be afraid, he should be afraid, he should be afraid-

But Byleth lost consciousness before he could even begin to wonder why.

…-…-…-…

For five years, the Adrestian Empire swept across the continent, taking over western Faerghus easily now that its royal bloodline had been extinguished, and advancing to Fhirdiad. Eastern Faerghus still remained loyal to the ghosts of the Royal Family, whilst, on the other side of the mountain range, the Alliance declared itself neutral in the conflict, somehow managing to avoid skirmishes with the Imperial army, despite their rising internal tensions.

Sometimes, Claude felt that, as the new leader of the Leicester Alliance, he was carrying the fate of Fódlan solely on his shoulders. He and Edelgard were the only major players left on the continent, which bode very, very poorly for Claude on the long run.

Oftentimes, on cold nights like these, he sat by the window and watched the sun set, feeling every ounce of energy he had setting along with it. He liked to imagine, fantasize, what it would’ve been like to have Dimitri and Byleth by his side, standing behind him and waiting for him to leave the windowsill, and return to them.

However, when he turned around, no one was there to greet him. The only thing his eyes caught was the seemingly-endless pile of paperwork on his desk, and the cup of cold tea that had been abandoned next to it.

Loneliness and business unending to conduct. Such was the life he’d led since he ascended to the position that his grandfather left to him after he passed away during the war.

Sighing, Claude did push away from the windowsill, feeling like he should at least review a few pressing documents, instead of lounging around. Hilda always sent him letters telling him to take care of himself, but Claude pleaded guilty to not knowing how exactly to do that. His old classmates visited sometimes but did not stay nearly long enough to keep Claude company as he craved.

Not that it changed anything. Sometimes, when Claude spun around a little too fast, he felt like he’d seen a pale head of hair turn the corner, and at those moments, he felt a very deep void open up inside of him, as if all of his faith, all of his devotion had been for naught. The loneliness he felt, friendless, godless, up on a pedestal where nobody could reach him, wasn’t something he could fix overnight.

(Or, he could amend that statement; it could be fixed overnight, but never would be.)

He sat down at his desk, added oil to the lamp illuminating his tired expression, and began to scan the first parchment he’d left on his priority pile.

It was perhaps fortune, then, that his work kept him up well into the night, bundled up in a shawl that Marianne had made for him in celebration of his ascension to his position of power. It was a combination of overwork and camomile tea (always camomile- it reminded him of better times) that lulled him into a daze, letting his head rest back against the chair, with his eyes closed, promising himself only a few minutes of rest.

Of course, a few minutes turned into many more when Claude inevitably dozed off, dreaming of kings and gods and a future where everyone in Fódlan could be happy. Blanketed both by the shawl and those fantasies, he felt much too comfortable to wake fully when, suddenly, a knock came at his door.

Slowly blinking his way out of his pleasant dreams, he yawned, and bunched the shawl closer around his shoulders.

“What is it…?” he called, rolling his tongue around in his dry mouth and wishing he had a pitcher of cold water within arm’s reach. Alas, the pitcher was on the coffee table a few feet away, and so, Claude resigned himself to death by dehydration.

“Duke Riegan,” someone called from the other side of the door. Claude didn’t recognize the voice, and figured it must’ve been just a soldier. “Your presence is required urgently in the courtyard.”

“What for?” Claude asked, frowning, and suddenly feeling a little more awake. “Have we received correspondence of some kind? A messenger?”

“Something of the sort.” The soldier didn’t seem too convinced, or at the very least, wasn’t sure how to explain it. “There is a man here to see you. He refuses to identify himself. He hasn’t been aggressive, but keeps threatening the guards into letting him past, and so we elected to bring this matter to your attention.”

“This better not be just a man too deep into his cups,” Claude grumbled, uncaring whether or not the soldier heard him. Getting off his chair, he stretched, and tugged the shawl closer around his shoulders, getting ready to brave the chill of the night. Opening the door and coming face to face with a worried-looking soldier, he sighed, and followed him to the courtyard.

Indeed, as they got closer and closer to the courtyard, Claude began to hear a raised voice that sounded, inexplicably so, a little familiar. He parted the sea of nighttime maids who had gathered to hide behind the front door, watching the commotion, and opened the door wide to exit into the front of the Riegan mansion.

“This is my last warning. Bring me Claude, or I will cut you down.” The man, visibly tall but otherwise obscured by the night, almost growled at the three guards who were nervously surrounding him, grips tight on their lances. Claude himself motioned at the accompanying soldier to hand him his sword, just in case it came to a fight.

The sound of humming steel rang out into the night as the soldier drew his sword, and Claude watched as the mysterious newcomer’s head snapped up immediately at the sound, recognizing it. By the time the weight of the weapon was nestled cozily in Claude’s palm, the clouds shifted just enough for the moon to shine through, and illuminate the tall man now looking directly at him.

“Claude,” the man said, not loudly, nor as a murmur, and Claude finally, finally recognized him. No part of him was recognizable, in reality; long hair, tall frame, eyepatch, deep voice- but Claude recognized him anyway.

His heart recognized him, and after the initial stutter it gave at the unexpected sight of Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, it began to race, equally so in his name.

“Dimitri…?” Claude didn’t mean to say it like a question, for some parts of him always knew that Dimitri could not have died as easily as under an executioner’s axe, but he couldn’t help the sudden insecurity that gripped his entire being.

“Claude,” Dimitri repeated, almost as if disbelieving as well, but the frown set deeply on his face proved otherwise. He pushed past the guards easily, and they let him, considering that Claude was also approaching in a rapid step, sword nearly forgotten in his hand. “It’s the Professor, Claude. We must return to Garreg Mach, the Professor is waiting for us.”

“Hold on, hold on.” Claude stopped, and Dimitri stopped right in front of him, the proximity between their bodies almost mocking them for five years of separation. “Dimitri? What are you doing here? Where have you been these past five years?”

“They are unimportant questions,” Dimitri answered gruffly, grabbing Claude’s wrist in a tight grip. “Come, please. Let us make haste.” He pulled to walk away, but as soon as he began, Claude planted his heels into the soft dirt, and snapped his hand back.

The touch, too, mocked them, for trying to be as they were five years ago.

“I won’t go anywhere with you, Dimitri,” he asserted, touching his wrist, unsure if Dimitri’s grip had been pleasant or painful. The latter’s only visible eye widened slightly at that, something akin to shock, and perhaps betrayal, flashing across his moonlit expression. “Not now. Not so suddenly like this. I’m glad you’re back, but I can’t just drop everything simply because you asked me to.”

“But… The Professor, it’s him, he is-”

“Regardless, Dimitri,” Claude interrupted him harshly. “I need more explanations, about you, about Teach, about everything you’re trying to say, or else I won’t go with you.”

“Do you not trust me?” Dimitri challenged, lifting his chin and seemingly trying to impose.

Thankfully, for all that Claude lacked in shoulder width, he could equal with character.

“I trust you, more than anything, and you know that,” he refuted, plainly honest but merciless as well. Planting the sword into the dirt between them, he crossed his arms. “But I will not proceed being kept in the dark. If you don’t talk to me, then I can’t follow you.”

The thin sword wobbled in its spot between them, moving when neither of them did. They simply held their respective positions, both opposing the other, and waiting for something to give.

Claude simply made eye contact with Dimitri’s visible eye, studying the dark, nearly ash grey circle under it, and watched his muscles shift tensely. Then, he knew that Dimitri would give in first.

And he did.

“Very well,” the blond spat, breaking eye contact and kicking the dirt at his feet. “I will answer your questions. However, after that, we must go to Garreg Mach to retrieve the Professor.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Claude replied, his shoulders lowering as their stand-off concluded. Sighing, and maybe even allowing himself a small smile, he turned around, and beckoned Dimitri forward. “Come. Let’s go have some tea and talk.”

Dimitri, as it turns out, did not want tea, nor to talk. But Claude did, both, and he’d always been oddly persuasive. Somehow, Claude managed to wrangle him into the sitting room, with steaming cups of a freshly-brewed blend between them.

Still, as he leaned back in his armchair by the fireplace and blew delicately on his drink, he took the time to observe Dimitri, who was only glaring at his own, as if it had committed some grave offense.

Dimitri had grown, but had also been worn down, by the looks of it. His hair was long, seemingly not out of choice but out of disregard. His jawline had sharpened, as had the slope of his nose, Dimitri no longer looking like a boy, but a man- a man who’d grown up very easy on the eyes, Claude dared think. Dimitri had removed his thick blue fur cloak, the maids running off with it immediately to purge it of the wet canine smell it carried, and Claude could only admire how wide his shoulders had become.

However, if he looked closely, he could see the many, tiny scars on Dimitri’s neck, jaw, and hands, unable to see the rest hidden underneath the armour he adamantly refused to remove. Claude had no doubt that the worst scars- and surely many of them- were hidden underneath layers of fabric and steel. The sharpness of his jawline, in retrospect, didn’t seem quite natural, and alongside his sunken eye and the bob of his protruding throat, Claude began to realize that Dimitri had not lived as well as he’d originally thought.

“Try these pastries,” he subtly hinted, picking up a jam-filled pocket, if only to set the example. “They’re delicious, and freshly made today. Well… yesterday, now.”

“I cannot taste them, even if I wanted to,” Dimitri huffed, still glaring murder at his teacup.

Claude sipped at his, a little loud, a little deliberate, and more than a little awkward.

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged, and sat back into his chair again.

This time, he simply waited for Dimitri to take the first step. He didn’t want to make it seem like he was interrogating the man; in fact, he’d love nothing more than to just hold him in silence, to try and catch up on the years lost between them. However, something told him that Dimitri wouldn’t appreciate that. And so, until Claude relearned what kind of man Dimitri was, he would stay silent.

“I escaped from Fhirdiad in the year 1181,” Dimitri finally began, hands on his knees as if not knowing how to hold himself. “I was captured upon returning to the Capital, and the traitor Cornelia intended to execute me, but Dedue… He gave his life so that I would escape. With his sacrifice, and with the blood of my own countrymen on my hands, I ran from Fhirdiad, and Cornelia announced my death to cover it up.”

“I remember,” Claude murmured sadly, setting his teacup down with a fine clink of porcelain on porcelain, sitting back and crossing his hands over his lap. He swallowed heavily, remembering how the news had broken him. “I was devastated when I heard.”

“I…” Dimitri seemed slightly thrown off by his display of vulnerability, and hazarded a glance upwards at him, surprised. Claude met his gaze with a sad smile, and Dimitri immediately turned his eye back to his hands, his face slightly flushed. “I see.”

He didn’t seem to know what to say to that, but his obvious scramble to say the right thing in consideration for Claude’s feelings was enough of an answer for him. Warmed at the realization, Claude urged him to continue.

“It’s alright. Please, go on.”

“Afterward, I ran and hid in the forest, heading east towards Ailell slowly. I think… my original intention was to go to you, in Derdriu, by throwing off my pursuers in the Valley of Torment… But eventually, both my wounds and the looming reality of constant persecution took their toll on me, and I became very ill. I hid in a tiny village off the map in Galatea territory, where the inhabitants nursed me to health without ever knowing who I was. After I regained my strength, however, the only thought that remained to me was revenge.”

Claude observed as Dimitri’s tone immediately changed, his hands tightening on his armoured kneecaps and his teeth gritting. He, too, felt slightly more on edge from the suddenly shift in the mood.

“And so, all thoughts of rejoining with you, or finding the Professor… They all flew away from me.” Dimitri took a shaky breath. “I only wanted my revenge. On that witch Cornelia, and Edelgard… I lived every single day, praying for the chance to separate her head from her shoulders… Praying that I could avenge all my loved ones, only if so that they may stop tormenting me with their whispers and pleas for retribution.”

“Why would you pray for something like that…?” Claude’s lips turned down just a little, genuinely saddened by the implications of Dimitri’s words. “Is that what your faith is worth to you?”

“At the time, yes,” Dimitri nodded solemnly, fully accepting of his past. “You must understand, Claude, that the whispers drove me insane. In waking and in my sleep, they were all I heard, all I knew. I’d do anything they asked me to do, anything, just to escape the agony of hearing them begging for their souls to be saved, and knowing that I couldn’t save them. I fought uncaringly for my own life, and much less for that of others. I never treated my wounds, never slept, never ate… All I wanted was revenge.”

“What changed, Dimitri?” Claude prompted, his heart lurching at the thought of Dimitri living so badly, in such physical and mental agony, all by himself for years.

“After I lost my eye…” There seemed to be a much longer story behind it, by the way Dimitri raised a hand to his coarse leather eyepatch, and pensively trailed the spot where his eye would’ve been. “I saw him… the Professor. He appeared in my dreams the night after my injury, and I have been dreaming of his occasionally ever since. I never quite remember what he says to me when I wake. All I know is that he is there, and that was enough to bring me comfort. I still wanted my revenge- still do, in fact, more than anything- but seeing him by my side once more…”

“It was like a beacon in the dark,” Claude completed for him, knowing the feeling all too well. “Dimitri… You speak of this as if it was long ago. Why didn’t you return here, to me, earlier than this?”

“I told you.” The rough, unflinching tone of voice was back, and Dimitri glared at Claude. “I am still fighting for revenge. I was much too busy decimating the Imperial bastards that took over the Kingdom to go anywhere but where the next fight took place. Even now, that has not changed.”

“But you’re here now,” Claude remarked, softly, irrationally afraid that at this realization, Dimitri would simply get up and leave again. “Not an Imperial soldier in sight, but you’re here.”

“… I am,” Dimitri agreed, deflating. “I… came to find you. Originally, I thought it best that you never met the monster that I have become. I did not want you to see me as this… beast. A part of me hoped that you would forever remember me as we were, back when we were boys.”

“But we are no longer boys,” Claude completed the unsaid thought, mildly heartbroken by the outlook that Dimitri had on himself. He wished he had the words to tell him that in any world, and in any circumstance, Claude would always want Dimitri. As easy as that.

“We are not,” Dimitri nodded, a few strands of hair slipping in front of his face, just enough to make Claude’s fingers itch to push them back behind his ears. “However, I had no choice but to come, this time.”

“Is this about going to save Teach?” Claude asked lightly, noticing how Dimitri tensed again. “What was that all about? Next time you barge into my courtyard past midnight, try to be a little clearer about what you want, alright?”

“The Professor came to me in my dreams some nights ago,” Dimitri continued, choosing to completely disregard Claude’s quip. “Recall that I’d never before remembered what he said to me in my dreams… but this time, he only said one thing, and I remembered upon waking; ‘come’. He told me to come.”

“To come for him, presumably,” Claude hummed in thought, unable to hide how his heart also flipped in his chest at the thought of Byleth returning to them after so long. “And so you came to me, because…”

“Because it has always been us three,” Dimitri replied, shameless and straight-to-the-point, not noting how Claude’s controlled expression instantly morphed into one of astonishment. “The first time he was taken from us, you sought me out. And so, now, I do the same. I want to find him, and I know you do, too, just as much as I.”

“Of course I do,” Claude coughed discreetly to duck his embarrassed face away from Dimitri. Anyway, Dimitri, who didn’t seem to notice how red he’d gotten, was glancing out through the window, gazing into the open skies as if yearning to cross the distance between them and Byleth in an instant. “I just… wasn’t expecting you to say it like that.”

“Say it like what?” Dimitri frowned at Claude, uncomprehending, and the latter couldn’t help but have a short laugh at his expense.

“Nothing, nothing,” he chuckled, finally feeling the heat die down, and only leaving a radiant warmth on his cheeks instead. “It’s just… really good to have you back, Dimitri. I’ve missed you a lot.”

“Hm.” Dimitri was a little thrown off, as if not expecting Claude to say something so direct. “You shouldn’t have. There is nothing of me left to miss.”

“I think there is,” Claude insisted, refusing to feel sad by Dimitri’s unwittingly self-deprecating comment. “You’re talking to me now, something I haven’t had in five years, so… that’s enough for me.”

“For someone who is adept at twisting phrases, you sure grew up to be direct,” Dimitri commented offhandedly, drawing another genuine little chuckle from Claude.

“I’ve always been this way,” Claude amended, and then stood up all of a sudden. “Alright, Dimitri. Please, settle in for the night. My staff will show you the guest room. You’ll have to excuse me, though; if we are to leave for Garreg Mach any time this moon, I’ll have to arrange all the work that must be done in consequence. We won’t leave for at least another day, of that I am sure.”

“We should avoid wasting time when we can.” Dimitri stood as well, rising to his full height just a few inches over Claude. “We should get there are soon as possible. Perhaps, even, the Professor is waiting for us as we speak.”

“Relax, Dimitri,” Claude rolled his eyes at his companion’s impatience. “He’ll wait. If he’s waited five years to come to you in a dream, then he can wait a couple more weeks. We’ll try and make it there… just before the Millennium Festival day, let’s say.”

“I hadn’t realized it was this month,” Dimitri said, unbothered by this knowledge.

“With the world in its current state, I don’t think it matters to a lot of people, really.” However, when Claude turned to look out the window, to the horizon beyond which their precious friend might be waiting for them, he knew one thing for certain. “Something tells me, though, that it matters to just the right ones.”

…-…-…-…

They set out two days later, two days during which Claude tried to wrap up his most pressing matters of the state while Dimitri breathed down his back to hurry it up. Two days of Claude barely resting and Dimitri barely sitting still, both of them anxious in their own fashion. Two days of having awkwardly silent meals with Dimitri (who ate like he hadn’t eaten in years) and two days of awkwardly waking up to find Dimitri sitting by his door (looking like he hadn’t slept in years, although… that was probably not off the mark).

Two days of watching Dimitri violently demolish the training dummies in the courtyard, fighting as if he was possessed by a demon. Two days of accidentally eavesdropping on his one-sided conversations with the ghosts that haunted his every step, listening to Dimitri begging and promising and tearing himself apart in a tiny voice so unlike himself. Two days of being told that Dimitri refused to let the maids wash his clothes, refused to let the squires clean the blood dried in the chinks of his armour, refused to talk to anyone who wasn’t Claude.

(It felt a bit like incidental acquisition of a toddler, except Claude didn’t particularly like children, and he couldn’t say the same regarding Dimitri.)

Two days of imagining what it would be like to find Byleth again, to find their way back at his side like following the thread of destiny. Two days of remembering the low, comforting timbre of his voice, the delicate upturn of his rare smiles, the firmness of his grip when he pulled Dimitri and Claude so close to him, cocooning them in his radiant aura as he laid resting in Manuela’s infirmary bed.

Claude missed him more than he cared to admit, and it would take a fool not to see that Dimitri felt just the same.

With that conviction driving them, they set out on horseback two days later, just the two of them and the packs on their horses, riding across the chilly Alliance territory to find their way back to where it all began, and already ended once.

It took them five long days, but eventually, they arrived at Garreg Mach monastery just in time to witness snowfall upon the abandoned holy resting place stretching out on the tall plateau before them.

Claude mused, all of a sudden, that this view was the very same one he’d shared with Byleth and Dimitri when they first returned to the monastery together, nearly six years ago. It made him strangely nostalgic.

Dimitri, though, only had a strange look in his remaining eye, something like sadness, but not quite so. “Let’s stable the horses before nightfall,” he simply said, the longest sentence of the day, in fact, and spurred his tired horse onward, towards the monastery.

Claude could only follow, trying not to think too much about the obscured spires of the cathedral before them. Although the sun had only just set, there was already an uncanny obscurity blanketed across the abandoned fortress town.

The interior of the town was even more uncanny, the silent streets and unlit houses making it seem like the town was inhabited only by ghosts. If Claude tried, he could pretend that everyone had turned in for the night already, despite the relatively early hour, but even at the latest hours, there would always be some sort of activity in the darkened alleys. Now, there was nothing, however; not a single drunkard stumbling along, not a single stray dog sniffing trash for food, not a single sound of tavern folk in the distance, not a single firefly to illuminate the way.

The town looked completely still, and riding through it only made Claude feel colder, and more unsettled. Dimitri didn’t seem to feel anything off, but he did. He attributed it to his tendency for paranoia, but couldn’t even tell if that was all there was to it. His gut simply churned as they slowed down to guide their horses through parts of the town that had been reduced to rubble from the siege of the monastery five years back. The closer they got to the monastery gates, the worse it became, until all their horses rode on was charred earth and ash.

Finally, moving past the razed houses and across the unsteady drawbridge, they dismounted to lead their horses up the steps, finally completing their pilgrimage by crossing into the monastery grounds.

And really, the monastery itself did not look like it had changed at all.

In fact, it was just as Claude remembered it last, as if time had halted for everything within the gates of Garreg Mach. They walked through the marketplace, their footsteps making imprints in the thin layer of snow on the cobblestone, which then disappeared neatly underneath the flakes that came down behind them. Even as they advanced, the proof of their existence was erased, almost as if the monastery had a mind of its own, and strove to seem undisturbed. Even their own steps made no noise; only the clicking hooves of the horses rhythmically cutting through the silence.

It felt like something was watching them from the shadows, and it unsettled Claude deeply. When he breathed out, a sigh if only to hear his own voice, mist curled away from his lips, and Claude felt oddly reassured at the sight of that ephemeral, but indubitable proof of life. He glanced over at Dimitri, feeling his gut untangle with each of his own visible breaths, and as they led their horses up towards the stable, he found it in himself to speak.

“It’s a little eerie with all this silence, don’t you think?” he asked, not too loud, as if disturbing the sanctity of this place would bring disaster upon them.

“With so many unfulfilled souls roaming these grounds, it is anything but silent,” Dimitri simply answered, his single eye staring at the top of the stone steps, and Claude stopped talking immediately because he absolutely refused to explore that chilling statement.

It was in silence that they stabled their horses in the darkened, but still-functional stalls, glad that there were bales of hay that had not been damaged by moisture to feed their tired mounts. It seemed like there might have been transient occupation of the monastery in the five past years, but at the present, there seemed to be not a single soul- none alive, at least- in the entire town. Now that the sun had gone, Claude felt like if he turned too quickly, he might see the shadows come to life with whoever was left.

With that thought in mind, he didn’t seek to inspect the movement he saw in the corner of his eye, content with unpacking and removing the saddle from his mount. It was menial work that they both quickly finished without conversation. Having done away with the horses, Dimitri then set his sights on finding Byleth.

“Let’s search the monastery,” he suggested hastily, fingers twitching in anticipation, and perhaps nervousness. “We’ll cover more ground if we split up.”

“This place is huge, Dimitri. Even if we split up, it’ll take us at least a day to search everywhere, and even then, we wouldn’t have any way to contact each other if we did find something,” Claude shook his head. “For tonight, since it’s already dark, let’s secure a place to rest, and we can begin searching bright and early tomorrow.”

“The Professor could be right here, just across from us, and you insist on wasting time?” Dimitri’s temper flared immediately, not that the murderous look on his face unsettled Claude at all. In fact, he was grateful for some form of familiarity, here in this place that should have been familiar, but felt completely off somehow.

“Don’t think of it like that,” he rolled his eyes, teasing Dimitri a little bit, just to throw in his two-cents of normalcy. “Teach had never seen time like an enemy, so why should we? If you’d feel better, we can sweep the southwest side of the monastery today, from the pond to… let’s say… the dormitories. Then, we’ll settle in our old rooms for the night, and start the search early tomorrow.”

Dimitri didn’t seem convinced by that, his brows still furrowed in defiance although in the absence of threatening words or convincing arguments, Claude could only compare him to something like a pouty child. He tried not to laugh at the mental image, since he quite liked his head attached to his neck.

“Come on, Dimitri. I promise that we’ll find him tomorrow,” he tried again, smiling gently at his companion, of whom he would never admit to being so fond. Seeing Dimitri- broken, suffering, jaded Dimitri- get so worked up over Byleth’s safety only made him human to Claude’s eyes, and he just wished that Dimitri could see himself like this and discard the degrading labels he’d given himself over the years.

“At first light of dawn, then, we will set out,” Dimitri finally huffed, and Claude let him have the last word because he wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise.

“Of course,” Claude nodded, and turned around to open up the march. “Now come on. Let’s find ourselves someplace warm before we, too, become still-life like the rest of the monastery.”

“It looks as if time ended on the day that the Professor disappeared,” Dimitri voiced Claude’s thoughts, glancing briefly at the ageless stone walls and trimmed hedges around them. The decorative gates swung open without making a single noise when they crossed them, cobblestone smooth and uneroded beneath their feet.

Claude glanced at Dimitri, at his sharp cheekbones and sunken eye, then thought of his own burdens, his own immeasurable weight to carry, and figured that he wasn’t too far off with that remark.

“It may as well have,” he sighed, suddenly exhausted enough for several lifetimes, and watched as Dimitri’s shoulders curved inwards under that very same weight.

Much too young and much too old all at once, Claude and Dimitri walked onward, like returning home to an empty hearth.

…-…-…-…

As promised, Dimitri woke just early enough to witness the edge of dawn forming in the night sky extending above them. He spent far too much time- almost a quarter hour- just breathing, glancing out of his old room’s window at a horizon clear-cut like the edge of a blade, and pensively admiring the way it changed colours- from deep, rich purples and greys to the vivid orange and pink of a cloudless winter morning. From up high on top of the plateau, he had a view on the snow-covered field below, gaze roaming across the old housing area devastated during Edelgard’s attack on the monastery. Nearby, there were deep tracks gouged into the ground, the snow not quite tall enough to fill them completely. Dimitri recalled them as having been made by the mysterious white dragon that had briefly fought by them during the siege.

And then, inevitably, his gaze landed on the section of the protective wall that had caved in, rubble still scattered around the hole in the wall. Beyond it, Dimitri knew that there was a canyon; bottomless and dark, and supposedly the final resting place for the man that Dimitri had personally seen fall that fateful day.

He remembered his scream very well, and remembered his own as well. As Byleth had fallen, the ground beneath Dimitri’s feet also felt like it shattered, and he hadn’t stopped free-falling ever since.

And perhaps he’d dragged Claude out on a fool’s errand, chasing a wishful dream to find his dearest Byleth alive and well, but after erring alone in the darkness for so long, he just wanted to believe.

And so, he believed.

And with that conviction in mind, he took a deep breath, turned away from the window, and stepped over the nest he’d made on the floor to exit his room.

Almost as if fated, Claude exited his own at the same time.

“Morning,” Claude greeted with a bright smile, one that Dimitri would never admit to having missed so intensely in his long years of isolation. “Felt a bit weird to be back in our old rooms, huh? It really feels like we were living in a completely different time back then.”

“We were too innocent back then, and blind to the realities before us,” Dimitri gruffly answered, not really interested in going down memory lane when the sun had only just come out.

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as being ‘too innocent’.” Sauntering over, Claude stretched his arms above his head, his Relic- Failnaught, if Dimitri recalled correctly- clinking as it shifted over his shoulder. His own palm burned as it yearned to clench around Areadbhar, but he knew that his own Relic was locked deep within Fhirdiad Castle, under Cornelia’s clutches. A problem for a different day. “We should’ve enjoyed our innocence while it lasted.”

Dimitri only made a hum in response, not too invested in discussing how he hadn’t been innocent for nearly a decade now.

Sharing dried venison and tangerines on the walk down, the two of them skipped all conversation, something that Dimitri was grateful for. It wasn’t that he disliked speaking to Claude, he simply felt like he wasn’t good at it. He’d spent half a decade on his own, only talking long enough to buy food and weapons, or taunt his enemies, and he didn’t feel like he had the ability to say anything else. Parts of him he thought were gone for good seemed to re-emerge, however, when he spent time with Claude, and so Dimitri dared to feel a bit hopeful for the future- especially if it was a future with Byleth in it.

In the rising daylight, Garreg Mach seemed even more intimidating than when they first arrived. The snowfall had stopped overnight, leaving half a foot of snow through which they trudged, Claude with a little more disgust than Dimitri. The rays of sunlight bounced off the untouched snow, making it glitter like gold. However, in the light of day, there was no reason for the halls to be so empty. If they could’ve blamed the silence of the monastery on the late hour last night, then this morning, they could only explain it by what it was; the people of the monastery were dead, slaughtered, and the place itself felt suspended in time, its abandonment too sudden and left unresolved.

Dimitri heard the whispers here and there, trails of voices he would probably recognize if he listened for too long, and felt like he constantly saw movement in his peripheral vision. He was not afraid of facing whatever spirit came to haunt him, but truly… he’d grown weary of it. So, as subtly as he could, he switched places with Claude as they walked, so that his companion could walk on his left, and fill up most of his peripheral vision with golden jewellery glinting in the sun instead. If he noticed, Claude didn’t comment, and instead made a comment about how much he (predictably) hated the cold.

“As soon as I am able, I will find you a cloak like mine,” Dimitri offered awkwardly, shifting the heavy fur on his shoulders.

“How thoughtful,” Claude hummed, seeming genuinely pleased by Dimitri’s suggestion, and Dimitri nodded, not sure what else to say.

Thankfully, Claude didn’t seem short on topics that morning.

“So, where should we look first?” he asked, glancing around as they strode through the Officer’s Academy, as if Byleth would just be standing inside the Blue Lions classroom, scribbling on the chalkboard as he always did before lessons. Dimitri tried not to let his gaze go towards his old classroom with that thought. It hurt too much to remember those times where everyone could afford to be more carefree.

“Let’s just look everywhere,” he decided, entering the reception hall. Dark as it was, it provided some relief from the outdoors chill, a fact that Claude seemed to appreciate.

“Well, last time, he was in the Holy Tomb. We don’t have Flayn to open it for us now, though…” he mused out loud.

“Claude.” Suddenly, Dimitri halted mid-step, a chilling thought aggressively clawing its way to the forefront of his mind. He remembered the altercation in the Holy Tomb very well- even relived it on some days, wondering if he could’ve done something more to save Byleth sooner.

Claude halted as well, curiously glancing at Dimitri, and waiting for him to compose himself.

But all that Dimitri could feel now was cold sweat beading on the back of his neck, a terrifying thought beginning to make its nest in his brain, one that he couldn’t shake off no matter what. For the first time since his bloody, desperate escape from Fhirdiad Castle, Dimitri felt something a little too similar to fear.

“What if… this is the Archbishop’s doing once more?” he proposed, feeling ridiculous just saying it out loud. He fully expected Claude to scoff at him, but he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that whatever pale wisps he kept seeing in the corner of his eye since their arrival weren’t just ghosts.

However, Claude did not scoff. If anything, his lips set into a frown, and his demeanour became more solemn.

“I’d considered the possibility, to be truthful with you,” he sighed, his voice a touch lower as if worried that the walls had ears. If Dimitri thought about it like that, then they had ridden their horses straight into the jaws of the apex predator last night, and so, Claude’s caution was well-warranted. “It seems like nothing short of divine interference that Teach has possibly returned… and the only person who can oppose the divine is a divinity herself.”

“Then it’s likely that Lady Rhea has the Professor once more,” Dimitri summarized, feeling his mouth dry up at the thought. Recalling their last encounter with the Archbishop, the one where she fought them like an experienced warrior, and then had surrendered Byleth to them with a promise to return, he couldn’t help but feel as if their theories were correct. “In that case, he might be in the Holy Tomb once more.”

“Let’s go around the monastery first, before we crack our skulls open trying to enter the Tomb,” Claude rerouted his tangential thoughts with a pat of his arm. “Who knows? He might just be fixing himself a fish sandwich in the dining hall and will meet us halfway by the time we finish sweeping the reception hall.”

“Unlikely,” Dimitri huffed, unamused, although Claude seemed undeterred by his attitude.

The two of them crossed the reception hall with nothing to show for it, and took the northern exit out towards the cathedral.

The moment that Dimitri stepped foot on the bridge running between the monastery grounds and the cathedral, something clicked inside of him, and it suddenly felt like he was being watched.

“Claude,” he called, trying not to sound too thrown off. “Let’s move forward. I feel as though this might be the place.”

“All the more reason to be careful, then,” Claude agreed, Failnaught’s string humming audibly as he took it off his shoulder and grasped it with both hands.

He expected a fight, then. Dimitri didn’t mind it. His own hands went to the silver lance strapped across his back, and he pulled it out, giving it a few spins to warm his numb fingers up.

Then, armed and ready, the two proceeded towards the cathedral.

Nothing came for them as they crossed the bridge, but the air did feel substantially colder the closer they got to the cathedral. Suspended above the chasm that separated the monastery from the cathedral, it may just have been the turbulent winter winds, but Dimitri suspected it may have a lot more to do with the looming sight of the gigantic construction.

In another life, he felt that it could have been his haven, a place where he could feel at ease to contemplate things by himself. Now, however, the cathedral cast a shadow towards the monastery, and once Dimitri and Claude reached the halfway point between the monastery and the cathedral, the shadow swallowed them.

Not a single sound reached Dimitri’s ears, other than Claude’s footsteps and steady breathing. It was all he needed to hear, anyway. With the confidence of pilgrims searching for answers, the two of them climbed the steps to the cathedral gate, and entered the premises of the holy grounds.

The door to the inner sanctuary was closed, and Dimitri hoped it had not been locked. Claude did not seem too concerned about it, though, gripping the handle and giving it a firm tug. The door screeched a little on its unoiled hinges, a violent noise that tore through any semblance of peace that had been established over them, but didn’t quite open.

“Let me.” Taking the handle instead, Dimitri waited for Claude to step away from the door before tugging it open. Unsurprisingly, it gave way, letting out a terrible screech as it opened enough for them to fit through.

Without a second to waste, Dimitri and Claude slipped into the cathedral, and once inside, their eyes immediately went to the front.

Past the rows and rows of pews, some broken and others overturned, part of the ceiling had crumbled, tarnishing the beautiful tiled mosaic floor with a mound of rubble. Unsightly cracks ran through both the floor and the stone pillars, although the cathedral didn’t seem any less enchanting because of it. The candles were all unlit, but in the daytime, a gentle light filtered in from the hole in the domed ceiling, dust dancing in the air before settling in a thick layer over the altar at the very front.

The altar, just past the small iron gate barring it from access, was best-maintained amongst everything else. The stained-glass window cast a bright backlight upon it, illuminating every crevice of the holy artefacts exposed upon it, and falling upon the elevated throne at the very front.

And Dimitri forgot to breathe, because past the specks of dust floating in the air, past the rubble, and in the light, Byleth sat upon the throne, still.

“Professor,” he choked out, his throat tightening all of a sudden. The head of mint hair was unmistakeable, even from so far away, standing in stark contrast with the dark stone and tapestries of the altar behind the throne. Dimitri could’ve recognized him with both eyes gouged out, from a hundred miles away, for no one else had the same allure that Byleth had, and Dimitri had never felt so compelled to throw himself at anybody’s mercy like he did for Byleth.

“Dimitri!” Claude called out in a warning tone, but Dimitri was already off, unable to hold himself back any longer.

His armour clanked as he sprinted down the corridor of pews, every step seemingly taking him further and further away from the man on the throne, and he felt exhausted by the time he made it through to the open area just before the altar. He only had eyes for Byleth, able to see him better from this shorter distance, able to watch the dust fall and collect around him, able to admire the dawn caressing his pale shoulders where his dark silk robe fell delicately to reveal wound-marred skin, able to wonder at the light reflecting off the golden chains that morbidly but elegantly kept him in his seat, able to note that he did not react at all to their arrival- merely sat with his eyes closed, unmoving, seemingly not even breathing.

“Dimitri, wait!” Claude repeated urgently, and Dimitri did stop, taking in a sharp breath of surprise, because he finally realized what Claude was warning him about.

Sitting at the foot of Byleth’s throne, and now standing up upon the dais, another head of mint hair came into view, one that Dimitri had not bothered to notice until then because he was much too entranced by Byleth’s ethereal appearance. One that he would have done well to notice immediately.

Long mint hair caught trails of light from the stained glass, which then bounced off the golden headpiece to create stars upon her head. Her eyes, so warm, and her skin, so flawless, both seemed to glow underneath the dawn. She was dressed completely in white, as opposed to Byleth completely in black, and her dress and cape, detailed with gold and trailing on the floor around her bare feet, made her look like every heaven’s envoy ever depicted in traditional Fódlan paintings.

Dimitri knew better now, though. He’d had five years to come to terms with the reality that the only true god amongst them did not wear white.

By the time he had his lance up and his feet spread in a defensive stance, Archbishop Rhea had come to stand between them and Byleth, looking not a day older than when they saw her last. To both of their palpable shock, she held the Sword of the Creator leisurely in her hand, although it did not glow like when Byleth awakened its true power.

“You’ve come,” she simply said, her voice calm and gentle as it had always been. Claude stopped next to Dimitri, stringing an arrow. The scene itself felt oddly familiar, reminiscent of the first time they’d ventured into the Holy Tomb together, but this time, there was nothing like shock on their faces. Instead, there was only determination. “Like clockwork once again, you have arrived. It must be the time, then.”

“Time for what?” Claude asked, aiming at Rhea without hesitation this time. Failnaught pulsed against his palm.

“Time for Mother to wake.” Rhea smiled, and it was the same smile she’d given them as a parting gift five years ago. And though now, she looked pristine, almost untouched by the passage of time, she nonetheless looked deeply unsettling somehow.

Claude loosed his arrow without a moment to spare.

It flew at Rhea with the dangerous speed and accuracy of a Hero’s Relic, and Rhea narrowly avoided it by rolling to the side, landing in a crouch with the Sword of the Creator at ready. Claude’s arrow embedded itself, instead, in the altar behind her, the powerful weapon causing the stone to crack and burst into tiny pieces of rubble, some of which sprayed onto Byleth.

The latter did not even react, still as the stone to which he was chained.

“Be careful!” Dimitri barked, rushing ahead of Claude with his lance raised. Rhea moved nimbly in response, jumping forward to her feet to block his downward swing, struggling visibly to uphold her stance versus Dimitri’s near-inhuman strength.

“Do not concern yourselves,” Rhea bit out through gritted teeth, relenting and jumping backwards to escape the face-off against Dimitri. Dimitri also stepped back, but immediately jabbed his lance forward. Rhea parried it expertly. “Mother has been asleep for five long years, frozen in time and untouchable. Though on the throne before us, Mother exists in a space where time has been halted, suspended in unconsciousness until the time comes to wake again. And… I believe that it is destiny that led you here on this day, so I believe that the time has come for Mother to return to our world once more.”

“Spare me the pointless chatter,” Dimitri seethed, parrying one of her own attacks, and swinging his lance in a wide arc to force her backwards. As she moved back, one of Claude’s arrows whizzed just past her face, singing a few strands of hair where she was too unsteady to duck fully.

“I, for one, would like to hear it,” Claude argued, his tone light but the set of his eyes grave. “But preferably, after you’re no longer a threat to us, nor to Teach.”

“I’ve never been a threat to Mother,” Rhea raised her tone, seeming offended by this claim. “You, however, have outlived your usefulness as heralds of divine return.” She turned her eyes to Claude but didn’t do much else, which immediately showed Dimitri that she was unable to use the Sword of the Creator’s true power to fight with its whip-like form. That bode well for him, as he was much better at close-combat than anything remotely ranged.

Taking the pause in conversation as his opening, he jabbed at Rhea’s chest with a loud war cry, catching her attention fully. She sidestepped the jab and spun once to give herself the momentum to swing at his side, a blow that Dimitri countered with the handle of his lance, heavy shocks reverberating through the metal, into his gauntleted hands. He then pushed the sword away and swung his lance in a horizontal arc, hoping to use its reach to separate Rhea’s head from her shoulders.

Alas, she ducked smoothly underneath the swing, Dimitri’s lance instead catching her headpiece. It tumbled away from her head with a loud cacophony of jingling gold and a heavy impact with the floor, throwing off her balance slightly. Dimitri repeated the same movement, a little lower, for his second try at beheading her, and Rhea rolled to the side to avoid it. She landed in a crouch on her feet just before Dimitri, her long hair, now free of the headpiece, floating around her before settling on her shoulders.

Dimitri’s eyes went to her hair and the familiar colour of it, and for a split second, there was someone else before him. Dimitri didn’t even need to imagine the details of his face to feel the pangs of yearning in his heart.

In that split second of inattention, Rhea surged forward, entering a range too close for Dimitri’s lance to be effective, and using his helplessness to instead throw an uppercut at his jaw. Dimitri’s teeth clicked painfully as the punch connected, and he barely recovered his stance before another hook, just as strong, swept him off balance through his blind spot. Though he stumbled with the unexpected force behind the punches, he was able to recover in time to duck below a powerful roundhouse kick that, despite her feet being bare, could very possibly have given him a concussion if it had connected. While Rhea recovered her stance, following the momentum of her kick, Dimitri swung his lance forward, unfortunately too late to find her opening as his lance abruptly met the vertebra-like teeth of the Sword of the Creator instead with a resounding screech. The sound of their weapons clashing made his hairs stand on end when he realized that it sounded like screaming.

“Where… where did you learn to fight like this, Archbishop?” he asked between grunts of exertion, furrowing his brow. Rhea’s gaze was steely and determined, and she didn’t seem winded despite the sweat pearling at her forehead.

“I’ve been alive far longer than you mortals can imagine,” she simply answered, pushing back against Dimitri with all her might. Sparks flew between their blades. “And I’ve fought in wars lost to time, against men with strength tenfold yours.”

“I see.” Despite the new information about Rhea’s identity, the condescending comment didn’t sit well at all with Dimitri, and a fresh wave of rage welled up within him, spilling. “Then I’d be sorry to disappoint!”

He overpowered her easily in the duel of sheer strength, pushing against her until her arms failed, and gave just enough for him to score a slice across her upper arm. Although it was surely shallow, it was an encouraging sign that even the Archbishop could be defeated, and the sight of thick, fresh blood now spilling in rivulets to taint her pristine sleeve made Dimitri’s heart speed up with adrenaline.

“Come at me, Archbishop, or whoever it is you truly are,” he taunted with a laugh, feeling something akin to euphoria in the heat of such a difficult battle.

It had been so long that he’d nearly forgotten how much he’d wanted to hurt Rhea the first time she took Byleth from them. Now, though, watching her wince at the unexpected injury, smelling the metallic tang of blood in the dusty air, he remembered how much he’d craved this moment, how much he wanted to remove her, and any other obstacle, that stood in his way towards Byleth.

Rhea said nothing, and Claude took the opening as an opportunity to fire a few arrows, possibly hoping to give Dimitri time to recover from the skull-rattling hits he’d taken by forcing her away from him. It worked; with nimble, practiced fingers only taking a second to string each arrow, he let loose three or four of them, each one forcing Rhea to either duck or block the sacred weapon. Without access to a long-range counter, Rhea then set her sights on taking out Claude first, and rushed at him instead.

Dimitri spun around to follow her, but she was much faster than he was, weighed down by his heavy armour. Dodging a few more of Claude’s arrows, she took a running start at him, and with a yell, jumped to bring the Sword down at his head with the weight of her entire body behind it.

Dimitri only saw the split-second on panic flashing across Claude’s face before he steeled his expression again, using Failnaught to catch her blade. The Relics made the same screeching noise as they met, Failnaught glowing brighter as the inactive Sword pressed down against its wielder. Dimitri used this moment to rush at Rhea once more, swinging his lance at her and hoping to catch her unguarded side, but Rhea recovered very quickly by kicking Claude’s forward-placed knee, and breaking their locked position to guard against Dimitri’s assault while Claude stumbled to the floor with a gasp.

“Why must you always interfere!?” Rhea roared, now no longer seeming as collected as before. It was either the first drawn blood, or the lengthening of the fight that shifted her demeanour into one that looked more frantic than before.

“Because what you’re doing isn’t keeping Teach safe at all! You’ve got him dressed up and chained to the throne like a prize horse to be shown off, and he isn’t even conscious to fight it. You don’t care for his wellbeing at all!” Claude answered, not that it was an answer she wanted to hear.

“Cease your nonsense! No one cares for Mother’s wellbeing more than I do!” Rhea roared, pushing Dimitri’s weapon again, and stabbing down at Claude instead, presumably to stop him from spewing the truth at her.

Claude, thankfully, reacted fast enough to raise his bow once more and catch the Sword’s teeth with the curve of his handle, the Crest Stone nearby glowing a bloody red with the excitement of meeting its brethren Relic once more. Rhea used the traction from the lock between the weapons to propel herself forward, vaulting over Claude’s fallen body to recover in a crouch, immediately thrusting her sword at Dimitri’s abdomen.

Not expecting the acrobatic move, Dimitri failed to parry the thrust, his abdominal armour catching the brunt of the shallow stab. In theory, he knew that the Hero’s Relics were a thousand times stronger than normal weapons, but he never expected that even such a small contact between the Sword and his armour could completely crush the metal like it did. Although he remained uninjured, with a loud sound of crunching metal, his armour caved in, the sudden impact knocking the breath out of him. He’d surely bruise where there was now a concave indent in his abdominal armour, pieces of metal falling right off and raining next to Claude’s head. 

The power of the Sword of the Creator was nothing to scoff at, and Dimitri could say it with certainty now that he’d nearly taken a stab from it.

Claude suddenly took the initiative to sweep his bow across the floor, catching Rhea in her crouch with a hit to her ankles. She let out a cry of surprise, understandably rattled by the hit from such a heavy weapon, and lost her precarious balance to fall backwards. With her vulnerably laying on the ground, Dimitri advanced, trying to spear her through and pin her to the floor with his lance for good.

As good as Rhea was at fighting, even she could do little against Dimitri’s tireless assault while on the floor. Her dress now ripped and bloody, hair tangled and caught on her arms, she looked on the verge of defeat, and that’s exactly what Dimitri hoped for as he stabbed downwards at her, undeterred by her quick reflexes at blocking.

As he predicted, it took three more stabs, and then the fourth one connected.

Dimitri felt Rhea’s flesh tear open through his blade before she even screamed, his pupil dilating at the familiar feeling in his palms. At his feet, Rhea grabbed at her side, where Dimitri had successfully pierced a sizeable slash near the bottom of her ribcage. Blood flowed anew onto the mosaic-tiled floor, and Rhea took a deep breath before collecting herself and raising the Sword of the Creator to strike at Dimitri again while he still rode his high.

She never completed the motion, however, screaming once more as, in a brilliant flash of light, one of Claude’s arrows pierced right through her bicep, the Sword dropping immediately to the floor with a clatter. Dimitri briefly glanced behind him to see that Claude had recovered, visibly limping from what was possibly a dislocated kneecap, but otherwise unharmed, still in refractory stance after having fired his arrow. The look on his face was grave, and Dimitri wondered if Claude could see something he didn’t.

They’d just secured their victory, hadn’t they?

“That’s enough!”

He turned his eye right back to Rhea at the sound of her high-pitched voice, thrown immediately aback from the murderous look in her eye.

She was sitting up, trembling visibly and awkwardly clutching at both of her profusely bleeding injuries at once, blood spurting from between her fingers with every breath. However, she somehow still seemed undefeated, her piercing gaze shooting right through Dimitri even through the few strands of mint hair that had cascaded in front of her face, obscuring her eyes. He did not know what to expect, and so, he panicked.

So, panicking, he raised his lance, and looked Rhea one last time in the eyes as he prepared to cut her down.

He met her gaze, and froze, for the eyes that glared back at him were not those of a human.

They were, instead, an unnaturally bright green glowing brighter by the second, and Rhea’s pupils constricted and flattened into reptilian slits in front of Dimitri’s very own astonished eyes. He thought he may have hallucinated it for a second before Claude’s voice rose from behind him.

“Dimitri!” Claude called urgently, sounding like his voice had caught in his throat. Dimitri, though, could not tear his eyes away from Rhea, from the last death glare she sent him before her body began to glow white. “Get away from her!”

“Now you’ll die, for all the times you’ve tried to stand between Mother and I…” Rhea seethed through gritted fingers, her features becoming indistinguishable in the blinding light. “This is your inexorable fate!”

The light swallowed her up as she let out a scream that warped into a guttural roar, loud and echoing unlike no sound Dimitri had ever heard. Finally heeding Claude’s advice, he unfroze from his shaken position, and stumbled backwards.

“Dimitri, over here!” Claude waved him over from a few feet away, looking just as shaken as him, both of them unable to tear their eyes away from where Rhea had been, and that was now completely covered by a blinding white light that expanded rapidly in size. Dimitri barely made it to Claude’s side, extending his hand to grab on Claude’s outstretched palm before another roar, much more animalistic, sounded out from behind them.

Dimitri fell just short of Claude’s hand when, suddenly, a strong gust of wind literally swept them both off their feet.

Giving out a short cry of surprise, Dimitri hit the ground and rolled, groaning when his armour dug into his body at the impact points. Raising his head, he noticed that he’d fallen close to the stairs leading up to the altar, and that from this point of view, he could see Byleth’s still body, remaining untouched and unaffected by the gust of wind that had even moved rubble.

Dimitri willed himself to tear his eyes away from Byleth in that moment, promising himself silently to devote the rest of his life to contemplating him if- when- they triumphed over the day. Instead, he looked back, his breath catching in his throat when he finally saw what awaited him.

What Rhea had become.

“The white dragon from the battle of Garreg Mach,” Claude wheezed out from a few feet away, coughing up whatever dust he’d inhaled from the rubble that had been kicked up, looking straight at the enormous creature that had thrown its long neck back to let out a terrifying roar in their direction. “The Immaculate One.”

“So, this is the true identity of Archbishop Rhea,” Dimitri gritted his teeth, clenching his lance tighter. Standing between Byleth and the beast before them, he felt an immeasurable pressure to keep the object of his attention safe, even though he knew he was vastly unprepared for a battle of this scale.

“I always knew that she had something to do with the dragon at that battle,” Claude laughed without humour, grabbing Failnaught tightly with both hands as the dragon unfurled its wings, sending another gust of wind at them. They both withstood this one by planting their feet into the ground, shielding their eyes. When it subsided, Dimitri glanced at Claude, only to see his typical grin wobble at the corners. “I never thought that she would be the dragon itself, though I suppose it makes sense in retrospect.”

“Do your introspection another time!” Dimitri snapped at him, noticing how red light was gathering in the dragon’s open maw. He steeled himself, even though he had no idea how to counter a beast so huge, easily the size of several typical Demonic Beasts together.

He barely finished his sentence before Rhea unleashed her first attack, a beam of light shooting from her open mouth and crudely carving an arc of destruction in their general direction. It was a powerful attack, but one with crude aim, so Dimitri jumped out of its radius, seeing Claude do the same. The rubble kicked up in its wake, though, managed to hit Dimitri, his bones aching where larger pieces sent shocks reverberating through his armour.

The attack seemed to have a refractory period, however, which could be their opening. Dimitri could only hope to grab Rhea’s attention while Claude used his Relic to take her down, his own missing Relic now being made painfully obvious to him once more. Claude seemed to have the same idea, standing upon his shaky legs with his sleeves ripped and arms bruised, and immediately stringing an arrow into Failnaught. He let it loose with a steady breath, an excellent marksman to his very end, and the arrow went sailing, piercing right in between the dragon’s large, beady eyes.

The dragon let out a screech that rattled Dimitri’s eardrums, its head snapping back with the force of Claude’s attack. Dimitri allowed himself to feel hopeful for an entire moment, before the dragon righted its head, no trace of the arrow left in between its eyes. It didn’t even seem mildly winded, only very angry, and it let out a loud road to confirm it before beginning to move towards Claude and Dimitri.

The two of them could only hold their weapons up, side by side and standing tall despite the gigantic beast now approaching them with footsteps that shook the entire cathedral from its foundations to its highest tower. There was nothing left to do but believe. Dimitri glanced at Claude, and Claude glanced right back, and they nodded at each other to make the wordless promise to live for Byleth, or die fighting for him.

And perhaps, also, they both spared a quick prayer for a miracle before rushing at Rhea with weapons raised high and faith cradled close.

…-…-…-…

It was not even mid-morning when the fight ended, as easily as it began.

First, Dimitri fell under the Immaculate One’s massive paw, wailing when his bones shattered as easily as glass underneath its weight.

And soon thereafter, Claude fell as well, crying out in agony as a huge claw ripped right through his thigh, pinning him to the floor on which he bled out.

It was not even mid-morning when the sounds of battle ceased, their voices ceasing, too, when strength left their battered bodies. In the light filtering down from above, the dragon settled down to wait, its most recent conquests unmoving beneath its heavy paws, and its eyes set on none but the unmoving figure propped on the throne.

Dimitri and Claude fought unconsciousness for a long time to be able to do the same. Unsurprising; there are only so many things that dying men can turn to for comfort in their last moments. Despite being unable to breathe, ribcage broken and chest compressed by the dragon’s weight, Dimitri fought to keep his eyes on the throne, and with every pained breath he could spare, with every tear that left his exhausted body, he found himself wishing to die with the sight of Byleth as his last.

…-…-…-…

It was a familiar, high-pitched voice that brought Byleth back from the darkness eventually. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep for her to be so angry at him, but he couldn’t help but feel fondness for the voice that woke him up despite insisting that she’d coddle him no longer. He couldn’t remember her name, a realization that made him deeply sorrowful, his brain fuzzy and his thoughts muddled. Still, he knew her, intimately and lovingly, and was glad to let her voice lead him home.

“Go now,” she said to him as the darkness began to give way to new light. “Wake, for there are men who have never stopped waiting for you to return, and who need you now more than anything else.”

It was the last that Byleth ever heard from her, and he opened his eyes.

Immediately, he felt overwhelmed, his senses rushing back to him all at once. The sudden and simultaneous return of every one of his bodily functions threw him off completely, his brain running circles trying to figure out what to focus on.

He couldn’t breathe, almost like his lungs had forgotten how to expand, and he couldn’t move, muscles set in stone and burning when he attempted to move so much as a finger. He felt deeply cold, all the way into his bones, skin painfully oversensitive to every wisp of wind that caressed it. And pain, pain, pain- as his senses slammed back into him, so did the pain, in all of his limbs and all of his organs all at once, his body feeling stiff and locked in place. Turning his head to look at himself was a horrible ordeal; not much more than the silk black tunic and golden jewelry registered in Byleth’s frantic mind in his current state. Even though he noted that the numerous fresh-looking abrasions on his arms and bare legs had been cared for, the strain of turning his stiff neck caused his vision to go white for a moment.

When it returned, Byleth stared at his own lap, and realized that he was trembling.

He registered the low jingle of metal when he came to, only getting louder when his limbs near-instinctively began to move, seeking to regain activity after so long spent immobile. Trying to sort things out one by one, he raised his arm, its muscles contracting painfully as he did, and found that it did not go very far.

When he looked down at his immobilized forearm this time, he realized that the gold bracer he wore was in reality a restraint, a thin golden chain extending from its underside and locking securely into a ring embedded in the throne on which he sat. The chain jingled lightly when he strained against it, and the sound repeated itself when he moved his other arm as well.

Too many thoughts came to him all at once, and Byleth’s mind went blank with terror.

He opened his mouth to cry out- in pain, for help, he didn’t even know- but his throat was much too dry for him to do anything but wheeze. A heavy weight sat on his chest, making it difficult to breathe, and Byleth made a painstaking effort to remove it by sharply thrusting his torso forward, only to be stopped by the rattle of chains near his ears. These ones, much heavier than those on his arms, looped from either side of his head to lock in place near his throat, and then extended lower down his sternum to then split once more and keep his torso well-restrained to his seat.

Despite the beautiful black silk falling off his shoulders and thighs, elegantly displaying his pale skin in contrast to the golden trimming, and despite the intricate golden headpiece and refinery looped around his waist, Byleth had never felt so exposed and unsafe. His position reminded him of a past incident he much rather forget, and as the memory of his captivity in the Holy Tomb returned full-force to him, he realized that there were too many similarities in this situation to ignore.

Finally, trying to find the answers he needed so badly, he raised his head, and looked around him.

He quickly recognized the cathedral of Garreg Mach monastery, in disrepair but otherwise untouched by time. And then, the first and foremost thing he noticed was the gigantic white dragon sitting patiently in the open area just at the foot of the dais on which he sat.

Byleth did not know why the dragon inspired such fear in him, but he made eye contact with it and his eyes immediately went wide. He briefly recalled fighting alongside the unknown creature at the battle of Garreg Mach, but even that memory didn’t inspire confidence in him. Something about it seemed off, and a violent shiver spasmed through Byleth’s still-trembling body.

It was the eye contact that roused the beast, and with a huff of misty air from its snout, it raised its head from the ground, stood up with heavy steps that rattled the entire cathedral, and unfurled its wings. The gust of wind that came from it ruffled Byleth’s hair, golden chains and precious ornaments clinking loudly all across his body.

When the wind stopped whistling in his ear, Byleth noted that the cathedral was no longer quiet.

Instead, heart-wrenching wails emanated from where the dragon had been resting, and Byleth’s wide eyes snapped to its feet, from where came what he realized were human screams of agony.

Unable to breathe, unable to move, powerless and defeated, Byleth could only cry out as well when he recognized the two figures lying just before the dragon’s claws.

“No-” Even the simple word had Byleth lapsing into a coughing fit that shook his entire body in painful spasms. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the two boys now quieting down, clearly suffering but out of energy to express it.

They’d both changed- Byleth didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, but they’d both drastically grown, although that did not stop Byleth from recognizing them, instantly, intimately, indubitably. He hadn’t expected to see them, but now that he did, he wished he hadn’t- they both looked dying, and Byleth was suddenly stricken by the terror of losing them, helpless to save them even though they lay prostrate at his feet. He couldn’t lose them, he couldn’t, he couldn’t lose-

“Claude-” Byleth’s voice cracked painfully, but he strained against his restraints again. “Dimitri!”

In response, the dragon reared its head, and gave out a powerful roar that shook the cathedral, small pieces of rubble falling from the hole in the ceiling through which pale moonlight was descending upon them. Byleth winced, refusing to look away from Claude and Dimitri, who, despite not seeming fully aware of their surroundings, were trying to find each other. He had to close his eyes momentarily when the dragon began to glow a blinding white, and when he saw the darkness behind his eyelids, his heart leapt in his chest, overwhelmed by the possibility that when he opened his eyes next, the people most precious to him would already be dead.

However, when the light subsided, and Byleth snapped his eyes open again in panic, Dimitri and Claude had not died. Instead, they’d managed to crawl to one another, Dimitri bracing a forearm against Claude’s heavily bleeding leg, and breathing with such effort that Byleth was left with no illusions of his own condition. Claude’s face was pale, almost grey in comparison to his usual complexion, shaky hands clutching at Dimitri’s arm to help put pressure on the gaping injury in his thigh.

Both of them were looking up at him, eyes wide and glossed over in agony, and perhaps some form of frantic euphoria from the adrenaline of living their last moments in his presence.

And standing behind them, no less regal for the blood and dirt on her clothes, hands delicately clasped and expression loving, Archbishop Rhea smiled at Byleth.

“Mother,” she murmured reverently, eyes twinkling in the moonlight. At her feet, Claude let out a choked gasp. “You’ve returned.”

“No,” Byleth repeated, his voice rough from disuse. “Rhea, what-” he swallowed heavily, anxiety mercilessly clawing its way up his throat. “What happened, what have you done?”

If Byleth could find the words to say more, he would’ve. Instead, he was interrupted very suddenly by Dimitri giving out a loud, desperate wheeze for air, and coughing up a spray of blood all over the cracked tile floor. He continued to cough, each breath in between laboured and struggling, blood dripping lazily from his lips. He pushed his free arm against his left side urgently, and Byleth noticed that his armour-clad hand seemed not to be functioning at all. From next to him, Claude’s head lolled to the side, distantly making eye contact with Byleth, his lips making an attempt to form words that he was much too weak to pronounce.

And the world beneath Byleth’s feet fell apart, splintering away with every one of Dimitri’s choked breaths and then fading with Claude’s sluggish blinks. He could only strain again, trying to break the thin chains keeping his stiff body anchored to the throne, limbs trembling violently with effort and emotions, and eyes wide and horrified as he watched them die at his feet. He distantly realized that he was supposed to watch over them and protect them, that they believed in him and he only let them down, slowly and painfully.

He felt like he deserved none of the remaining reverence in their eyes, sitting upon his throne and watching them from high above like a god having forsaken his children. And Rhea stood tall, eyes bright and hopeful, proudly displaying her sacrificial offerings at the foot of his altar.

She moved. First, she swept low to pick up something behind her, and when she stood with the Sword of the Creator gripped tightly in her hand, Byleth’s blood ran cold. His fears were assuaged, however, when she smiled at him, not casting her gaze to Dimitri and Claude and therefore unlikely to put them out of their misery with the same weapon that was intricately connected to Byleth’s body and soul.

Next, not even bothering to circle the dying men before her, she crossed right over Claude’s body, unbothered when her bare feet stepped in the puddle of his blood. The hem of her dress caught some of it, a red trail following her as she slowly climbed the steps to his altar. Byleth saw Dimitri trying to raise his arm to grab her as she passed, but a low whine from Claude had him immediately returning pressure to his leg.

“After all this time, you’ve returned,” Rhea murmured, coming towards him with her footsteps light, airy, almost floating. Byleth hesitated to split his attention between her and the collapsed figures behind her, afraid of taking his eyes off of either one, albeit for very different reasons. As Rhea reached out to him, though, he had no choice but to focus on her, his pulse accelerating at the thought of her unclear intentions.

He struggled almost reflexively, but his arms were restrained much too short for him to reach her. He only watched, breathing rapidly, as she stopped before him and set her free hand gently on his bare thigh, her warm touch a stark contrast to his frigid body. He briefly thought of kicking out at her with the only part of his body left unrestrained, but with everything else chained tightly and with her plan unknown, he hesitated to provoke her. As much as he hated it, Byleth was at Rhea’s complete mercy.

That fact was made abundantly clear as she slowly raised the Sword of the Creator, its pieces clinking together like a chime as if greeting Byleth once again, and setting its tip where the black silk was cut deeply to keep most of his chest exposed. The sharp weapon drew blood near-immediately from the bare skin just above his unbeating heart. Byleth tensed at the tiny flash of pain, inconsequential in comparison to the ache of his seized body, but somehow a hundred times more intimate than any other pain he felt. It felt strangely like the familiar pain of betrayal.

“Five years,” Rhea finally spoke, her gaze warm as Byleth bled from his heart. “I’ve waited for millennia already, but these five years were the longest of all.”

“Five… years?” Byleth repeated, dumbfounded. Glancing behind her to Claude and Dimitri and sharing a frantic look with both of them, he couldn’t doubt her words, however. “What happened…?”

“Inconsequential,” Rhea sharply answered, grabbing his attention once more. “All that matters is that we are together again, with no one left to stand in between us.”

Byleth’s gaze flashed to Claude and Dimitri once more with absolute dread, but they both stared back at him, still breathing, still waiting, and undoubtedly still believing in him. Byleth did not want to let them down, not when they risked losing one another for good if he did. Like sword and scepter, he needed both, one in each hand, to be able to stand tall as the divinity he embodied. Just as they claimed to have nothing without him, he also knew he’d be lost without them.

“Come, Mother. Let us leave this place,” Rhea hummed, her invitation ringing hollow as she pulled the tip of the Sword away from him slightly, and then sliced left with an elegant flick of her wrist. Byleth braced himself for pain, but all he felt was the snap of chains against his chest. He didn’t even need to see to hear the gold fall apart, falling away from his body completely as all the connections snapped simultaneously. Even the last link on each bracer snapped spontaneously, leaving his arms free at last. When Byleth looked down at Rhea, who pulled the Sword of the Creator away from him, she only smiled, and held out her hand.

Byleth disregarded it, but he did use his newfound range of motion to scoot forward on his throne and propel himself off the high seat. His muscles screamed at the movement, and when Byleth landed, his entire body collapsed in on him, sending him straight to the floor. Breathing heavily as the ache across his muscles intensified, he shakily pushed himself to his elbows and knees, sweat beading on his pale face at the exertion of it all. From his peripheral gaze, he saw the hem of Rhea’s bloodstained dress as she moved, crouching before him.

“You may have been suspended in time for the duration of your slumber, but your body remembers five years of sitting immobile upon the throne,” she explained softly, as if that was supposed to make him feel better. “You will regain strength in due time. For now, your body is still reorienting itself.”

“Dimitri, Claude,” Byleth choked out in desperation, raising his head slightly. Rhea’s loving expression blocked them from his sight completely, however, and he was suddenly overtaken by a terrible rage towards her. “Let me through. Rhea, let me through!”

“Mother,” she stopped his sentence, merely watching as he struggled to move his stiff limbs into a sitting position at least. “Please, call me by the name you gave me. I’ve longed for you to call me Seiros once more.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Byleth gritted his teeth, painstakingly pushing himself off the ground, one knee at a time. “Move, I need to go to them-”

“Why, Mother?” Rhea interrupted, her expression falling slightly as she watched Byleth breathe heavily through the pain. “Why are you so attached to mankind? All they’ve ever done is betray you, slaughter your children in cold blood and bring death and destruction to the world you’ve gifted them. Your bones can never be laid to rest because of their arrogance. So why do you continue to protect them?”

“Sothis never once showed hate for humanity,” Byleth answered instead, standing up finally and coming face to face with Rhea, who only blinked at him, patiently waiting. “She never seemed vengeful or angry, never cursed them or hated them for what they did. Sothis was warm; she told me to weep when I lost my father, and encouraged me to be kinder to those around me. She only ever spoke of love, Rhea-”

“Mother, please.”

“Seiros,” Byleth conceded, watching as a near-literal weight fell off of Rhea’s shoulders, her posture relaxing and a relieved smile dawning upon her face. She let out a small sigh, seemingly too full of emotion to keep herself composed. “Seiros, do you feel love at all?”

“Of course I do, Mother.” Raising the Sword of the Creator up between themselves, Rhea set the flat part of the blade against her cheek, and caressed the weapon tenderly. “I’ve dreamt of you for millennia. I’ve slain Nemesis in your name and have brought the entire world to revere your name. They worship and praise you, they have been for a long time, but only I’ve loved you all this time.”

“Then you understand,” Byleth sighed, putting his hands on Rhea’s. She seemed taken aback by his action, eyes widening slightly as he caressed her skin slowly, and then gently took the Sword of the Creator back within his hands. She let him take it, lips parted slightly in reverence and- undoubtedly, love. The Sword resonated with Byleth, finally uniting his soul into one piece once more, and he took in a deep breath, feeling everything slot back into place at last.

He brought the Sword down, and Rhea reached out almost reflexively, although Byleth stopped her by putting his free hand on her face.

His fingers cupped her cheek, cold to touch and stiff, but somehow, it was what she needed. Rhea’s eyes widened and then filled with tears, one of them rolling down her cheek and pooling in the crease between Byleth’s knuckles.

“Mother,” she murmured, her voice breaking as the sadness and suffering of time immemorial finally left her body. “I love you. I love you, I love you.”

“Then you understand,” Byleth murmured right back, tightening his grip on the Sword of the Creator, “that I love them, too.”

And he sheathed the weapon forged from the Goddess’ bones into Rhea’s chest.

He felt her heartbeat reverberate against the blade, watching her eyes widen and her breath strangle in her throat. More tears escaped her eyes, now crying freely with nothing else left to lose. Byleth remained silent, caressing her cheek as it, too, became cold.

Her legs gave out from beneath her, and Byleth ripped the Sword out of her body, catching her as she fell. Gently, with the respect owed to the child of a goddess, he laid her down on the dais, and smoothed the hair away from her face. As she bled out, Byleth stood back up.

“Mother-” she gasped out one last time, watching him stand with desperation in her eyes. “Please, please-”

“I love them,” Byleth offered as his only explanation, mirroring her earlier words. “I love them, I love them.”

And, stepping over her still body, he left Rhea to bleed out upon the altar, her body one final offering to appease the god that protected Fódlan.

Byleth’s boots clicked on stone as he painstakingly walked down the steps, knees shaking in exertion as his body got used to moving once again. His headpiece felt heavy and undeserved upon his head, the long black silk billowing behind him as he walked, each step punctuated by the jingle of gold and precious metal. He was dressed finely, undoubtedly beautiful and worthy of being called divine, although he felt anything but.

Even the pleading gazes of his unshakeable believers, now looking up at him from the floor, could not convince him that he’d done them right as their god.

“Dimitri,” he greeted softly, collapsing next to them at the foot of the stairs, his knees splashing in their cold blood. His hands immediately lit up with the strongest white magic he knew. “Claude. I’m here.”

“Knew you’d come back…” Claude murmured, his voice low and weak but irrefutably relieved. “…waited…”

“We waited, believed, and searched,” Dimitri continued his sentence, interrupting himself as well to catch his breath.

“Thank you,” Byleth answered him, smoothing his glowing hand through his hair. Dimitri’s only visible eye shone in the light. “Thank you for believing in me. I sometimes fear that I am undeserving of your faith.”

“It is… unshakeably and irrevocably yours,” Dimitri panted heavily, clutching tighter at his side. “Byleth. It is yours.”

“Byleth,” Claude murmured as well, the name rolling off his lips easily, as if both of them had been rehearsing it all this time. “It will… always be you.”

“Thank you,” Byleth simply said, for there were no other words to express the warmth he felt at their devotion. He still wasn’t convinced that he deserved it, but he would do anything to be. “Dimitri, Claude… Rest now. You’re safe with me.”

“Mhm,” Claude mumbled unclearly, massive blood loss robbing him of any other word. He made a visible effort to scoot towards Byleth’s side. Simultaneously, Dimitri pulled away from him, trusting Byleth’s words and safely taking pressure off of Claude’s thigh to instead crawl against Byleth’s other side, collapsing in a fit of bloody coughs as his likely-punctured lung spasmed.

And Byleth simply welcomed them back into his arms, where they’d always belonged, putting his glowing hands on their broken bodies to hopefully soothe them of their suffering. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to let his own anxiety melt away. Rhea was dead. Claude and Dimitri were back at his side. He really wished he could shake off the immeasurable sorrow that was still gripping his very soul.

“Byleth,” one of them called, and Byleth did not know who it was. He continued to run circles on their bodies with his hands, mourning the obstruction of clothes and armour that kept him from feeling their warmth while it lasted. “Did you… mean it?”

“I did,” Byleth hummed without hesitation, taking a shaky breath as tears welled up behind his closed eyelids. He’d mourned his father back in the day, but this was a different kind of grief, a different kind of love. “I meant it, and always will. I am not quite divine, and I am not quite human, but I love you as both all at once.”

A peaceful silence settled upon the cathedral, and in its wake, Byleth let the first teardrop fall.

…-…-…-…

The Blue Lions gathered at the Goddess Tower later that same day, honouring their promise to meet again on the day of the Millennium Festival. Although both Byleth and Dimitri hadn’t shown up, they regardless decided to stay at the monastery one last time, to celebrate what life they had left and mourn the ones they’d lost to time.

It was Felix who found them, entering the cathedral with the intention to reflect and spare a thought for the lives he thought he’d lost.

Gentle daylight filtered down into the cathedral, dust suspended in the chilly air. Silence permeated the broken cathedral, blanketing the cracked mosaic tiles and wrapped around the cracked stone pillars. Rubble littered the area facing the pews, the ceiling collapsed and the ground overturned violently. Outside, winter birds chirped- once, twice, and then stopped.

As Felix approached the altar, he heard the humming.

Upon the altar itself, shrouded in the shadows, Lady Rhea’s body remained immobile, eyes closed and face awash with dried tears. Her skin was grey, her body long gone cold.

At the foot of the steps, Byleth sat on his knees, black silk elegantly fanned out behind him, delicate sleeves tied by golden ribbons hanging off his exposed shoulders and his tunic cut low to expose his chest, marred by old scars, fresh abrasions, and a bleeding spot just above his heart. In the golden light of the stained-glass window bathing upon it, the intricate headpiece perched upon his head glinted, his soft mint hair seemingly glowing with radiance. His expression looked neutral but peaceful, and his eyes were closed, specks of dust caught in his long eyelashes. Tear tracks, now dry, ran their course symmetrically down his face, into the curve of his neck.

He was humming.

Felix did not recognize the song, but it was a soothing melody that was only interrupted when he breathed. As if in a trance, he did not react to anything, and continued humming as he rhythmically caressed the boys at each of his sides.

Dimitri, having rested his head on Byleth’s right thigh, had his eyes closed, his eyepatch untied and gently folded next to him. Blood specked his lips, staining his chin and the tiled floor before him. His armour was dented and smashed in many places, one of his legs twisted and one arm curled against his chest. Despite his perpetual scowl, he managed to look at ease, Byleth’s thin fingers combing carefully through his long blond hair.

Claude’s head rested on Byleth’s left thigh, and he similarly laid with his eyes closed, limbs limply splayed around him. A large, gaping wound through his thigh had bled into his clothes and all over the floor, although it did not seem like it was bleeding anymore. His fingertips were red and swollen from having strung too many arrows. He looked tranquil, a small smile carved into his face as Byleth’s hand cupped his cheek, thumb rubbing slow circles against his temple.

There was something ethereal about them as they laid resting amidst the wreckage. Felix didn’t dare disturb them, for in the violent scene painted in the cathedral, the three of them looked like they were at peace, at long last.

…-…-…-…

And Byleth smiled, for even if no one else ever found out, he knew; he loved them, he loved them.

**Author's Note:**

> THE ENDING IS AMBIGUOUS, IT'S UNSPECIFIED IF THEY DIED OR LIVED. I personally like to think they lived bc I love them and I just want them to be happy, but I also recognize the appropriateness and significance of them dying like martyrs for their god. So I'll leave it up to interpretation for everyone, let me know what ending you prefer! 
> 
> Their injuries are pretty nasty, to be fair; Dimitri had his body crushed under Rhea's foot, breaking bones and ribs (eventually puncturing part of a lung when he moves to get to Claude) and also compressing his limbs under all that armour. The second he removes his armour and normal blood flow returns to his crushed limbs, his heart could actually stop. So, in this case, Dimitri keeping his armour on is going to save his life till he can get help from a healer (wow how convenient that Mercie just arrived at the BL reunion, wow). Claude is straightforward; he got his thigh run through by a dragon claw. He probably got his artery punctured, but Rhea literally sitting on Claude until morning probably saved his life bc her claw staying in place staunched the bleeding. He only bled again when she pulled off from him, at which point, Dimitri was there to compress. He'll probably end up with a nasty nasty infection, and will probably never be able to regain 100% function of the leg again, but that's okay, bc he rides a wyvern into battle. I've thought everything through for peak happy ending possibilities, I promise. If that's the route you choose to go down, of course. Bittersweet endings are perfectly fine, too. 
> 
> The relationship between Byleth and DimiClaude is also ambiguous. They love each other, really, but I'll let y'all decide if it's a "I wanna kiss you and bear your metaphorical children" love or a deep and visceral soulmate-type love or if it's a love between a god and his devout believers. I'm not a huge fan of overt romance in this context, so I'm also stuck between deciding. I'm sorry about the very slow pacing, by the way. I really tried to reduce the word count, but this ended up being literally 14k of Dimiclaude, and then 4k of Claudimileth. Sorry Byleth, sorry you slept for over 77.78% of the fic. 
> 
> I feel like maybe I went a little overboard with the religious imagery this time around. Note how much religious vocabulary and imagery is used; pilgrims and prayers, sacrificial offerings upon an altar, bare feet and miracles, and of course, believers and gods. I tried to make these references subtle, but I think... maybe I did a bit too much :') I also wanted to describe Garreg Mach as something out of Gothic literature (which is traditionally closely linked with religion, if I remember correctly). Note that it's described as a place where time has halted, one key element of Gothic settings. Lots of the vocabulary set the mood for Garreg Mach being a highly uncanny place, with plenty of uncertainty whether it's actually stuck in time, or if it's simply perception. Dimitri hallucinating people and voices really doesn't help with the "deeply unsettling" vibe the monastery gives off. 
> 
> The only thing ACTUALLY stuck in time was Byleth. I gave a thought as to how, in the game, he'd slept for 5 years without having to eat/pee/move, and I was like "no, makes no physiological sense, if he's sleeping, his biological processes still go on". So to keep it simple, Byleth's literally ascended to a different pocket dimension where his body just... does not function, and his consciousness is suspended. So of course, when he came back, his body regained all its processes frozen during 5 years, and that's a disaster. Have y'all ever slept more than 16 hours in a row? I have. Waking up and starting to move again is P A I N F U L. I can't imagine 5 years.  
(Also, I had to think hard to explain why, on the fanart on which this is based, Byleth has fresh-looking injuries. Rhea wouldn't hurt him in this context.)
> 
> Anyway, I had so much trouble finding references for the cathedral. The in-game one and the one in cutscenes DON'T LOOK ALIKE??? I picked up my Switch and ran around to explore the area, and then rewatched the ending cutscene from Silver Snow, and like... listen. I'm just gonna go with a mashup of both. Intsys doesn't like consistency, so I don't either. Speaking of Silver Snow, Rhea literally dies in Byleth's arms, looking into Byleth's eyes, speaking her last words to Byleth MF Eisner, and she still says "You're here, Mother...", like w h a t. Don't tell me my fic is unrealistic, this woman's deluded in canon too. 
> 
> That's it, I think. Anyway, thanks again to Cosu for drawing such a fun AU to write for, and thank you everybody who read the whole thing! I'd love to discuss what you liked/didn't like, so please leave me some feedback~ Thank you!!
> 
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> 
> -SS


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